With Canada Day and Fourth of July just around the corner, it’s a great time to do maintenance on your flagpoles.

Preventive maintenance and maintenance

• Generally, the higher the expected wind speed, the smaller the flag you should fly. A smaller flag prevents damage to the pole. For a wind chart, see http://americanflagpole.com/resources.php?view=cat&cat=Wind_Chart For a chart of flagpoles and flag sizes, see http://www.gettysburgflag.com/flag_pole_ratio.php
• Replace the halyard (rope/cable) on a regular basis.
• Correctly rig a halyard to an outdoor flag pole to keep the strain on the halyard, not on the flag. See http://www.anyflag.com/flagpoles/howto.php
• Check out several good maintenance suggestions (such as stains and scratches, halyard maintenance, winch operation and maintenance, and cable replacement) with downloadable pdfs: http://americanflagpole.com/support.php?view=cat&cat=Care_and_Maintenance&subcat=Halyard_Maintenance
• For understanding flagpole components terminology, see http://www.morgan-francis.com/terminology.aspx